U.S. Heraldic Registry

Registration of contemporary and historical heraldry

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The Bury Grammar Schools

This certifies that the heraldic arms of
The Bury Grammar Schools
are registered as an original design and are described by the blazon below

Arms: Argent two bendlets Sable and Azure in sinister chief a crescent Sable.

Crest: On a torse of the colors the head and neck of a swan erased proper holding in its beak a key bendwise wards lowermost to base Or.

Motto: SANCTAS CLAVIS FORES APERIT

Organization information

Although the Bury Grammar Schools assumed arms in 1900, when the Governors created a Girls School and decided that they should have the same insignia as the Boys School, the Schools’ history records that no grant of arms has ever been requested from or made by the College of Arms. The arms assumed in 1900 and carved in 1906 above the entrance to the new Girls School, as they had been over the Boys School, were therefore unofficial and unregistered. Those arms were an adaptation of the arms of the Kay family of Lancashire, Argent two bendlets Sable. The School arms were originally differenced as Argent two bendlets Sable in sinister chief a crescent Sable, the cadency signifying that Roger Kay’s benefaction made possible a second founding of a School first founded in 1570. The arms now described as Argent two bendlets Sable and Azure in sinister chief a crescent Sable address the lack of registration and incorporate the distinctive combination of metals and tinctures that have come to be associated with the Schools in recent years. The crest, used on School uniforms, depicts a swan holding a golden key in its beak and is a representation of the motto SANCTAS CLAVIS FORES APERIT. This registration of arms is a gift to the Schools from the Henry Dunster Society (q.v.).